Pages

Thursday, August 19, 2010

speaking of living small...

This is a plan vs. reality post, of a sort, although it's mostly just showing off.

We had planned to share a bedroom with baby J until she was somewhere between one and two years old, and then figure out where to go next. But somehow a few weeks ago Andrew and I found ourselves sleeping on the pull-out couch in the living room while J learned how to sleep in her crib. It was just easier. And then she learned, and was a champ at sleeping in her crib and we didn't move back to our bed. We like it out there. That's the reality.

So we are initiating Phase Two of our plan early! Our home is basically two good size rooms, one of which has more closets than the other and is further from the kitchen and so has been deemed "bedroom" while the other has the door to the hall and open kitchen access and so has been deemed "living room." Lucky for us, both rooms have their own bathroom. We've decided to chuck these semi-random room designations and make both of the rooms multi-use. Baby J(and possible future children) will sleep in the former "bedroom" which will also be a family room/playroom/crafting room space. Andrew and I will sleep in the former "living room" which will continue it's other uses as living room/reading room/music room/tv room/dining-room-when-company-is-over/playroom/office.

But we cannot continue sleeping on the IKEA pull out couch. So we found a great affordable carpenter on Craigslist and yesterday he came over and did this:This is our new bed when it is closed.

And here it is open! Our comfy regular mattress fits in just fine, and we ended up putting the tv back on the wall inside the bed. Which I love, because I don't like rooms where it seems like the tv is a central focus of attention.

We have more work to do, before Phase Two is complete. The family room/J's room is a disaster at the moment because it has our old bed frame AND the Ikea couch AND her crib and dresser and toybins all crammed in, but it will seem quite roomy once we get the bedframe out and the rest all fixed up. But the wall bed is a big step forward in our new plan.

I love this plan! We looked into murphy beds when we lived in a studio, but I didn't realize (duh) you could get a carpenter to do one up for cheap. Love it! We have also been considering a family bedroom with a big, queen-size loft. We used to sleep in our living room on a futon, with the promise to ourselves we would fold it into a couch every day. Um, yeah. We didn't. So we can't be trusted with a murphy bed, either, I'm afraid.